Smack Dab In the Middle

February 8, 2011 — maxwest

This week’s post features yet another project of mine. Besides the character of Judy Binder, I have another character I’m working on for an art book. This is a female squirrel by the name of CG (pronounced “see gee” just like the letters) and I’ve been working on a series of pen-and-ink drawings. Let me show you what I’ve been working on here.

Smack Dab in the Middle

This piece was done with pen-and-ink on 9×12 smooth bristol. The female in the middle is the character of CG. The title of this piece came from a now defunct brand of gum from the 1980s called Chewels. One of the TV commercials (you’ll probably find it on YouTube) for this product had a jingle that opened up with the line “smack dab in the middle” – it fit since the product was a gum with a liquid filled center.

Creating this was somewhat of a challenge. I used depth cues here, rendering the unnamed male squirrel in front with a sable brush and a thin Hunt 107 nib for the squirrel in the background. CG was sketched in with my pen of choice, a Speedball 512 nib. Unfortunately, the 107 point and the Uniball pen I used didn’t show up well when I scanned the image. I had to touch this up in Photoshop.

Well, this is the first of the images for my art book. Now I just have to create enough to fill up a whole book.